Final, Finally (minus an "F" word I left out)

Despite the fact that my computer rebelled during the last week and was actively working against me (shakes menacing fist at screen), here is the screencast for my final project. It goes all Wonky McCrazytown in the middle, but I have made my peace with this, the final screencast of the semester.

The accompanying wiki/blog.

Click To Play

I like my real life, thanks...

There I am, Honor Sommerstein, flying over the water after I've dragged myself out of it for the 100th time. Let's just say walking was a challenge for me.

I HATED Second Life. Hated. I just don't get it. I used to mess around with the Sims a little bit, but honestly after I dressed my people up and got them looking the way I wanted, I lost interest. Some would argue that the interactivity in Second Life is more engaging--you can meet and talk to people in real time. Well, OK. But I can walk to the corner and do that. I was so disoriented and uncomfortable in Second Life that it made me WANT to work on my MMP project--that's pretty bad, since I'll use any excuse to avoid working on it. I have enough trouble managing my real life. If I'm going to head out to find some bliss it is not going to be clicking buttons trying to connect with another compuer generated icon. I understand the appeal of recreating yourself in another world, but ultimately you still have to go back to the real one and deal with your sh**. Does Second Life ease isolation or create more of it? I guess it depends on how you define connection. It. Is. Not. For. Me.

Library-wise I suppose it's OK to experiment, but I'm going to stick by my mantra: Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. Second Life, in my opinion, is one of those places better left to recreational gamers.

If I were Steve, I would give me an A

This class is a living example of something that could easily be perceived as a "dumbing down" of the SCILS curriculum to people who operate out of an old school mentality. The truth is that the technologies we learned about here could quite possibly mean the difference between being merely a competant librarian and an excellent, innovative one. This class is not set up to initiate you into the "cult of 2.0 technology", but to introduce you to the potential of the technology and its related pitfalls. Honestly, this class would do more to enhance the practical skills of a librarian than MMP.

Things that I took from this class that I am using and will continue to use:

• Wikis--these are gifts from a higher power for group work. I have three going right now and am considering a fourth.
• Screencasting--invaluable skill. If a course that I take online does not use some kind of screencasting element I do not feel connected to the course in any way. I see incredible potential for this.
• Flickr--I like the concept. It's nice to play with a medium that is not word based. Has potential to engage the entire library community.
• Blogging--I've always kept journals, I have a lot of opinions, I love blogs. Great communication tool when paired with RSS feeds.

Hated with a blazing redhot hate:

• Gaming. I know why it's important, and I think it needs to be covered, but--blech!
• Myspace/Facebook--it is my belief that people use social networking sites for reasons that probably do not include libraries. Libraries need to be there and aware, but not count on these sites to create a community for them.

Ch-ch-ch-changes:

• I'm a fan of weekly forum activity. In this case I think responses to blog posts should be mandatory throughout, or at least strongly encouraged. Perhaps group IM'ing? I think that we all had some great things to say and I would have been interested to see what we would have had to say to each other.
• Second Life portion might be enhanced by "meeetings". Assign three or four time periods where we could all meet up in Second Life, possibly pair up for activity or something. I felt very isolated in SL, having my classmates there might help.

I did love the class. It was fun, but most importantly, it taught practical skills while engaging our critical thinking. It wasn't just about HOW, but about WHY. Sometimes it's about content, sometimes it's about how the content forces you to think. Some other courses in the SCILS curriculum could afford to take a page out of Steve's book.

Society Needs A Dose of Vitamin L

My ideal world is one in which people come to libraries to check out books, to study, to learn new things, like the library of my childhood. Then, people associated the library with "important", vital things. It was where you went when you needed information, when you needed definitive decision, when you needed the kind of comfort that only quiet, solitude, and a good book could provide. If I had to define ideal library culture for myself, that would be it. The library, however, does not operate as a function of my mind (pity, that)--it operates in a societal structure that is largely out of individual control. To consider the function of a library as serving a fixed, timeless purpose, independent of the society in which it operates is what will doom the institution.

A library MUST operate as part of the society it serves. It must, to a certain extent, reflect that society. We can all cry into our beers about the dumbification of American culture, but unless the ALA is going to position itself as the savior of American culture and aggressively spearhead a movement to reclaim it, libraries have no choice but to evolve their collections and services to reflect what is actually going on in society. That said, I do believe that traditional library services and culture can be preserved and flourish, they just need to exist side by side with updated ones.

There is always going to be a segment of society that will lament the erosion of our culture. There will also be those who try to justify plain nonsense as intellectual discourse. The key is to find balance between the two. Bigger is not always better. Faster is not always efficient. More is not always fulfilling. Libraries should keep this in mind as they build collections and prepare programs for the digital generation. Create collections that are driven by quality, vibrancy, AND relevance. Yes, they may incorporate some less than highbrow aspects, but they don't have to devolve to "Rock of Love" level either.

Imagine a library world where people come to the libary. Actually come to the library. Some might come for books, some to play in a Guitar Hero tournament, some might drop in to check out a DVD or use the internet. But just imagine people having a central location to come, to meet, to relax, to possibly even learn, but ultimately to leave enriched in some way. Shouldn't that be a library's true mission anyway?

Getting my grandma on! Yahoo Bingo

Here is my game screencast. I'm not much of a gamer so I went with a game that required little head to head interaction.

Bingo Mama

Game On! Librarification of games or arcadification of libraries, you be the judge.

Here's how I would go about choosing a system for a public library:

1. Review your library's mission. If your library doesn't have one, start writing. It is important to know what your library's mission is so that you can evaluate how gaming can dovetail with that mission.
2. Set your budget. It would be horrible to do all kinds of research, decide the Playstation3 is for you and then find out you can't afford it.
3. Decide what kinds of activities you envision sponsoring with your game system: family fun nights? tournaments? boys activities? girls? age groups? Are you in it for fun? Education? Both?
4. Anticipate resistance. There are going to be some people who Just. Don't. Get. It. If you've done your research and have a plan, you wll find it easier to persuade the haters.
5. Research what others have to say about the subject. First stop: ALA.--here and here. It's important to get the "company line". Then hit the blogs. You'll get tons of anecdotal information that can help you make a sound decision. Next: ask your patrons. Whether it be casual conversation, a forum, a survey on your library blog, or a more formal SurveyMonkey, you need to take into consideration what your patrons want.
6. Don't forget peripherals. The game system is not just the unit. Make sure you know what games are out there for your system and what other peripherals you might need (controllers, dance pads, joysticks) you will need to get maximum fun out of your chosen system.
7. Choose your system. My system of choice for libraries just getting into gaming who might anticipate some resistance from patrons or their board would be the Wii. It's non-threatening to video game newbies (of all ages), with simple easy-to-understand controllers but still lots of fun. There are games for a wide variety of ages, and lots of games that all ages can play together. This way, you can include the whole library community and not just kids. My stepfather loooooves bowling on the Wii. I could see starting a senior program in addition to kids/teen programs. The Wii is a versatile, non-threatening system that doesn't have a Grand Theft Auto stigma attached to it. Also, you don't want your programs to skew to one age/sex group. Gaming can easily skew to tween and teen boys if you don't have a varied program that will appeal to all. The one down side is that you cannot play the Wii online, so if you envisioned tournaments with other libraries, you would be limited.
8. Explore online gaming options or even none at all. Perhaps your library isn't ready for full-on system gaming, there are a lot of games on the net, including educational ones, and there are ways to work wth these to create a program. It's not a shame to know your strengths and weaknesses, and more than OK to decide that gaming isn't right for your community.

I think the most important part of the process is determining your library's mission and how gaming will contribute to that. To simply say "It will bring more people into the library" is not enough of a reason to start a gaming program in a library. It needs to contribute to more than just foot traffic to be justified. It needs to be an integrated part of what the library wants to do and should be doing for the community.

Quiet on the Set!

Screencast best practices:

* Double check your links if you are going to switch screens during the screencast. Nothing more annoying than getting halfway through a cast and hitting a broken link or a link that suprises you. Also, remember that your desktop or toolbar may be on display and if there are things you don't want to show, hide them.

* If you are not alone, notify everyone in the household that you will be screencasting for the next half hour and need QUIET. That quiet should include not just a ban on talking but on flushing the toilet in the bathroom adjacent to your office, emptying the dishwasher, or employing ridiculous stage whispers to still attempt to communicate. Unless the house is on fire, someone has severed a limb or Ewan McGregor is at the door, DO NOT DISTURB!

* I would say don't overpractice because if you do it sounds it. For me, I'd rather sit through a screencast by someone engaged in their topic who might fumble a bit than someone who has practiced a screencast into submission.

* If you mess up a few times and get frustrated, walk away. Tension is reflected in your voice. You're better off coming back to it later.

* Learn where the pause button is. It doesn't matter much with the short screencasts we do, but redoing a fifteen minute screencast because you don't know where the pause button can be frustrating.

* Play with pan and zoom, especially if you are doing detail work. I had fun with this feature, and I think it can be helpful as long as you don't overdo it and make everyone dizzy.

* Watch your sound levels. The first few times I did screencasted I didn't and ended up being disappointed when I played my "good" one back.

* Have fun. Remember: edutainment!

Pop Culture is the Opium of the People

Full disclosure here: I am a pop culture junkie...and proud of it. While in my youth, I always wished I was one of those people who could scoff, "I never watch TV. There are too many books out there to bother with--[barely suppressed sneer]-- television." (What can say, I was an English major in college and there ain't no snob like an English major snob--hmmm, unless you count theater majors...) But alas, it was never to be. As much as I loved books, I still heeded the call of the TV and later the internet. I couldn't help myself. I am more information junkie than snob. While I do love catching an obscure reference in literature, I love being able to catch an obscure reference in The Office even more. Do I wonder sometimes if I am the dumber for it? Sure. Sometimes I think that the part of my brain that is currently analyzing the Project Runway finale might be put to better use, but honestly, why?

Johnson makes a good point: it isn't so much about content and WHAT people think about and encounter in pop culture, it's HOW it makes people think. Some examples:

Gaming: As bad as some content is (seriously, I don't even like to be in the house when Condemned II is being played, I can feel the creep vibe), you cannot deny that there needs to be solid reasoning and decision making skills employed in order to play and win these types of games. That the games may be sexist and desenstize people to violence is something to consider, but I have always contended that if you are parenting peoperly when the game is turned off, you have less to fear when the game is turned on.

TV: Believe it or not, TV shows have prompted some of the liveliest and intelligent debate I have ever witnessed. Back in the day, I participated on a forum dedicated to a TV show. While the subject matter of the TV show often bordered on the soap opera (even sometimes on par with a telenovela), the lively analysis and debate that occurred the week after the show aired was something to behold. People wrote haiku, developed games with elaborate rules, wrote recaps and fan fiction, and used sophisticated debate techniques to dismantle an opposing viewpoint (when they weren't flaming each other). Granted, sometimes the resulting content was as amateurish as the show itself, but sometimes it transcended it. TV shows, even bad TV shows, can make people think and create and interact. It's not all about passive watching anymore.

Internet: We know it's like crack. But the collaboration and interaction it has enabled far outpaces the threat of information overload, if you ask me. Again, there's a lot of junk out there, but in order to navigate the junk, you need to develop a whole different set of skills. The real question here is when will the educational system catch up to the technology and teach the skills that are really needed, instead of what is going to be state-tested?

So is pop culture the opium of the people? In a way, yes. As Johnson pointed out, a lot of the pop activities that we pursue tap into the natural reward circuitry of our brain--whether it's getting to the next level of Bioshock or obessesively checking our MySpace/Facebook to see who friended us or wrote on our wall. No doubt, pop culture is like crack in that way. But I don't think that it is an opiate in the sense that Marx would have intended: sedating us to the pain and suffering of our reality. And I think that a lot of critics of pop culture see it that way: we use pop culture as an easy way to avoid doing the "hard stuff" of life. But for a moment consider this: the skill sets that worked well in the last hundred years may not be the ones we need for the next hundred. What if pop culture thinking, not the WHAT but the HOW, is part of the skill set we need? What if "stupid" is the new smart?

Radio Free MySpace

Not a good computer day. I am ready to fire my laptop right out the window. So if my voice seems a little tense in this screencast showing you how to add a song to your MySpace profile, please forgive me.


Click to play

Ning! Went the Strings of My Heart

I am by nature a private person so I've been having a hard time this week with MySpace and Facebook. I kind of don't see the point. I mean I understand why it's important for libraries to have a meaningful presence there, I completely respect the medium, and I subscribe to alerts for bands I like, but for me...meh. Honestly, if I want someone to know something about me, I'm going to call them or email them or even--gasp!!--write to them. (Yes, I still use snail mail. I do believe letter writing is an art that will be sorely missed in the future). And if I'm really not interested enough to seek them out, then I probably don't want them to have the information. I know it seems old fashioned, but I like my privacy. Which is why nings appeal to me a little more than MySpace or Facebook---because it is a community of my choosing, centered around an interest or an activity or a group I choose to belong to. In other words, there seems to be a point beyond exposing my absolute worship of Michael Stipe to the world.

Good example: there is an alopecia ning. A lot of sharing and emotion goes on in that forum, some of which might be uncomfortable to share with the world wide public. Using a ning provides a little safety, protection and comfort. Yes, you get all the convenience and ease of having on online place to go and trick out as you like, but you are far less exposed. Using nings to galvanize interaction in groups makes a lot of sense, especially in business. As you know from our reading, knowledge-management is a bitch (I may put that on a t-shirt). To have a space to post and share ideas and thoughts, and then to have a written archive of them would be invaluable.

I guess I'm just not social enough for social networking. Or possibly too boring. And definitely too private.

If you build it, will they come?

Young people are on MySpace and Facebook--some quite obsessively so. Does this mean that libraries need to be there too? Yes, if you are serious about outreach. If people are checking their pages daily and you have the potential to reach them daily, that's pretty significant. But the key to getting through to the MySpace generation isn't just about having a page--it's about having a page that "sticks". Let's face it, people are not on social networking sites for non-social reasons, so you have to give them a reason to come to your page. This requires a plan and putting time and effort into promotion and updates. If you are just going to plop a site up just to say you have it, then you should probably not bother, because none of your target audience will either. Social network sites are about creating and maintaining community. Simple presence does not a community make. Showing up is the first step, certainly. But a true community is built on fostering and encouraging interaction. A lot of libraries can't even seem to accomplish this in the brick and mortar world, let alone the click and mortar world. If your community link is weak in real life, it's certainly not going to get stronger by putting up a MySpace page.

Another thing that I find interesting is this: social networking sites are as much about "public displays of connection" as they are about keeping in touch with people. They, in some strange way, validate your identity. How many young people will shy away from "friending" a library because it doesn't fit their online identity? How do you create a page that can overcome the "image factor"? Furthermore, how can you create a community where there may be loose or no ties at all to the library? Can you create a page that will attract, or is the point only to keep in touch with the community you already have?

I think MySpace/Facebook is crucial to getting connected to people, but it must dynamic and/or useful for it to make sense. And another important point: it should cover both sites, MySpace AND Facebook. Boyd made a powerful statement about the "good kid" vs. "bad kid" class division on Social Networking sites. If you are going to dabble in MySpace or Facebook make sure that you take into consideration all possible effects of what you do. For instance, a librarian may have experience with Facebook so s/he will put up a page there, but ignore MySpace because it is unfamiliar. While this may seem like no big deal, the decision has an impact beyond a matter of preference.

So if you build it, will they come? Maybe. The question really should be if you build it will they care?

I Liked You Better Before You Were Naked On The Internet

My sticky podcast.

Labelmania Thursday Afternoon Smackdown

If you've ever dreamed of learning how to do a mail merge using Microsoft Word, today is the day your dreams have come true! Here is my camtasia recording of just that exciting topic.

And here is my link to the quicktime movie

Click to play

New Adventures in YouTube

Everyone had something interesting to say last week, but here are my faves:

Mark's (mzscils598s08) "Using a flash drive" video made me laugh. Plus, it really did teach something. Very edutaining!

Karen's (khscils598s08) "Day out in London" video captured the feeling of walking around in a city that you love, a feeling I instantly related to. Made me want to run out for a pint and some chips.

Laura's (lhscils598s08) "Making scones". Using the oats to write key directions was really creative, showed that you don't necessaruly need words to get your point across.

Great work everyone!

I'm gonna DJ at the end of the world

Pandora radio screencast

There were some definite production issues in the middle, but I finally got the volume right so I'm sticking with it. A short introduction to Pandora radio in honor of R.E.M.'s new album release.

Enjoy this bonus video, too.

Clown Shoe Grudge Match

My son and I have a difference of opinion on footwear. You be the judge. The color came out poorly, but take my word for it they are bright and vibrant.


Click to play

My show page

Bald is the New Black

My kid rocks, and he rocks hard. A year in the life of a kid with alopecia.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY-wnQTcoeQ

Let me Edutain You

Apparently, if males ages 18-34 had their way, YouTube would be nothing but videos of people swallowing spoons of cinnamon , skateboarding dogs, or this. There's no denying surfing YouTube can be fun. But that represents just the infancy of YouTube and other video-sharing outlets. Just like the infancy of TV and MySpace/Facebook and blogging, entertainment is the initial draw. It is through entertainment that people become attracted to a medium, and once that medium has proven that it can capture the imagination of an audience, it starts to evolve. And it also starts to attract institutions and corporations. Now whether or not corporate/institutional buy-in evolves a medium or subverts it is a matter of opinion, I suppose. But the fact is that if corporate/institutional users can preserve the philosophy and spirit of the medium in their use of it, a lot of interesting things can happen. (Look at that guy who did an ipod "commercial" for fun and actually had it picked up and used by Apple.)

In fact, YouTube and the technology that makes taking and posting video easy has created a whole new category--edutainment (or infotainment). It is not enough for a video to be strictly educational. A generation is coming of age that is used to quick-cut, sound-bite, multi-task, mutli-platform media. You will lose them if you present dry, long-winded, straightforward material on YouTube or blip.tv. But if you can engage them, you will be able to teach them. So do educational videos stand a chance against entertainment videos? Yes, because they will, if done right, be one and the same. And the "getting hit in the cojones" videos? They're forever.

You Say Tomato, I Say WTF?

In looking over the flickr groups from a couple of weeks ago, I had an "I Am Legend" moment. Can I be the only NYC-loving, non-pet-owning, no interesting hobby-having person in the class? I felt so lonely. :( (**Are my emoticons right? I'm left handed and easily confused)

But then I realized: if we were to all meet in person we would have plenty to talk about and to share. It's just that photos, as rich and interesting a medium as they are, can only show you one or two facets of a person. It's not the same as "knowing" a person. For our purposes, it may be "good enough", in that I know more about my classmates than I would if we were just posting in a discussion forum, but there are still limits to what miracle social media can perform. So maybe we are not destined to become a society of feed-programmed pod people after all...

Endnote: It's fun to see people from areas outside New Jersey and also get input from the students who are taking an online class but are "regular" students by day. It adds a nice perspective.

Supernatural Superserious Social Software

This was a writing exercise I did in my journal a couple of months ago.

http://www.switchpod.com/users/lsscils598s08/pocast.mp3

Dewey death-imal System

What is abundantly clear to me after finishing The Long Tail is that the only way to truly have a long tail is to take your "business" online. Any permutation of a brick and mortar location, be it store or library, is going to severely truncate the tail. You need to have "room" for unlimited inventory and you need to make that inventory accessible, searchable, and rateable in a thousand different ways or you are really just shoe-horning your services into a long-tailed model, not really extending your tail.

Libraries, even taking into consideration cooperatives which serve to extend the tail, are limited not only by a physical brick and mortar building but also by the classification system that defines pretty much everything within its walls. The Dewey decimal system is antithetical to an essential concept of the long tail: giving people mutiple and varied ways to organize and sort through the massive amount of stuff that populates the tail. Surely our library databases circumnavigate some of that, but bottom line is the library system is based around Dewey and as a result even our filters are limited. A lot of work is being done now on different ways of classifying and searching digitized material (this is one that I find interesting: http://www.cs.umass.edu/~mimno/papers/f129-mimno.pdf), and this is where I think libraries should be placing their focus. How can they build digital materials into their collections? Saturating your collection with digital materials will insure that your tail is legitmately, and not artificially, extended. Undoubtedly there are question marks out there as to who will be supplying the content, how much content can reasonably be expected to be digitized, and will people respond to digitized material, but the reality is that preparation made now will not only extend the library's tail but may well determine their future viability.

Philosophically libraries are aligned with the long tail: universal access to almost anything you need. Can libraries truly be living this philosophy without serious exploration of digital collections and innovative ways to search them?

Media can be both wave and particle

If Long Tail has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that just because you can compare something doesn't make that comparison particularly meaningful. That said, I'm not sure that you can actually compare podcasts to text based blogging on a particularly meaningful basis. They are two very different mediums that would appeal to people for very individual reasons. As a blog lover I choose text blogs for some things and podcasts for others. When I am in my car or at the gym I'm listening to podcasts because they are portable and the perfect accompaniment to my incessant multitasking. When I am home and can concentrate on one thing at a time I am visiting text based blogs because I can focus a little more on the content, although I am often bouncing back and forth between work and blog.

Some people prefer to get their information aurally (not orally, but imagine if you could get your info that way...) some prefer reading and/or visually absorbing their info. Some subjects are better suited to a particular medium. A political debate blog, for instance, that might be a snooze in a text-based format, becomes someting dynamic and compelling in podcast form.

With all of the plug ins and widgets available for blogs, your text-based blog can become both text-based and podcast at the same time. The best podcasts, in my opinion, are ones that incorporate some kind of text-based blog as part of their package. That way, if you don't catch something you can hit the blog and see what you missed. Double the fun, double the learning.

Instead of a head to head comparison, just ask yourself these questions to determine which medium suits best:

• Medium preference--are you in a listening mood or a seeing mood?
• Subject matter--is it something that can be easily absorbed in podcast form or is it so complex that you will need to track back and reinforce what you just learned by re-reading?
• Portability--where are you? what are you doing?
• Concentration/distraction level--how much energy can you devote to the medium? How much are you bothered by distraction?

Make it Work

As an online student of just about one year I am generally satisfied with my SCILS educational experience. I have learned a lot in the classes that I've taken, and have been able to make use of the concepts that I've learned both in other classes and in practice. I still feel a bit disconnected from the process though and less like a "serious" MLS candidate than I think I should. Likely, it's the lack face to face interaction with the SCILS community. You have to work a lot harder to make connections with your peers online, and sometimes it feels like you are living from assignment to assignment, rather than participating in an active, educational culture.

Also, there is still a bit of learning curve when it comes to online instructors. Some get it, some almost have it, and some have not a clue. Teaching online requires instructors to work a little harder to ensure engagement with the material. You cannot engage by lecture notes alone. I think that using the journal section of e-college, blogs, and "discussion" tools make all the difference. And I did not realize this until I took a class that used very little of these tools in instruction. I was still able to learn the material, but I had to work hard to engage myself. Interaction is the cornerstone in the foundation of most of LIS theory (can you have a IR system without it? a reference transaction?) and shouldn't it be would obvious that interaction is key to preparing professionals for the field, particularly is you will never see these students face to face?

I think I may be sounding more negative than I actually am. I think you get out exactly how much you put into your educational experience. I actually love "going" to school, so I would make it work with two tin cans and a string if I had to.

My flickr pictures reflect my lonely alienation with only printed articles, wires, and a stuffed owl for company. Or check out the rest of the class.

And the winner is...

Internet Explorer at 56.67%
Firefox 43.33%

Connections:
Cable 26
DSL 2
Other 1

Are Libraries the Manx of the Long Tail Economy?

Manx

The Long Tail is driven by individuals, individual preferences, individual opinions, individuals having the tools to create and accomplish things that before took the financial backing and marketing support of corporate entities. The individual undoubtedly benefits from the Long Tail, but the corporation/business that can harness the power of those preferences, tools, and opinions are the ones that profit. If libraies are to be any kind of player in a Long Tail economy, they have to learn how to leverage the power of the individual with their institutional systems. Remember, libraries may not be in direct competition with retailers, but retailers and their processes have a direct impact on the function and purpose of the library. Bottom line, getting libraries anywhere near being new producers, new markets, and new tastemakers is engaging individuals in their quest and taking a lot of that quest online. The true power of the Long Tail takes place not in a building, but in a constructed community. If a library is to be successful, then, it needs to extend outside its walls and into the community. Let's take a brief look at where libraries can contribute in each of the areas.

New Producers: Let's face it. When you think innovation you don't think library. But in a niche driven culture, libraries can, individually, postion themselves as new producers. They can create innovative programs, using Web 2.0 tools, that can draw in patrons and redefine who the library is within their community. Do this over and over again and you can have a revolution. The key here, though, is not to use technology, but to engage and involve others with that technology. Individual libraries don't need to concern themselves with world domination, but they do have to be concerned with community domination.

New Markets: Libraries have tried to harness the power of aggregation with inter-library loan systems, but they need to seriously embrace technological advances. As material is digitized and print on demand becomes more common, libraries need to have a plan to incorporate these technologies into their offerings. Further, I think there is a new market where libraries can dominate: Information is easy to get nowadays. Navigating that information and deciding which information is valid and meaningful to you is not. Libraries can lead the way in information navigation--if they fully understand the technology and market themselves to their communities as such. Why isn't every library in the world offering up their experts at every school, continuing ed class, senior center, and coffee shop in the country?

New Tastemakers: While libraries may not have the database power of Amazon, they do have a database and a community of people with opinions. Of course, the library has an absolute commitment to protecting the privacy of its patrons so any information culling would have to be done extremely sensitively, but perhaps libraries could take a page out of Amazon's book and have pop-up recommendations added to their search function. Even seeking opinions from people as they circ materials, put a slip in books that direct people to a website to give their thoughts on the book/movie/music they just borrowed. Part of the slip can be set up for manual entry as well to include those not familiar/fond of the internet. The review can be attributed or anonymous. Get that program going and market it, create traffic to the site, spark interest and see where the community takes it.

I feel the need to stress that libraries are not ever going to have the Long Tail that internet retailers have, but in an individual driven Long Tail economy, libraries can extend their tail further into their community (and surrounding communities) than they ever thought possible. The challenge is this: engage your community or lose it to an interactive, responsive corporate system.

I'd rather die than give you control

OK so I'm a control freak when it comes to my work--collaboration is a challenge. Google docs and wikis can be uncomfortable places for someone like me. They push you out of your comfort zone by opening up work for the input of others. This is a good thing (thisisagoodthing, thisisagoodthing, thisisagoodthing) because it forces you to cede some control to the group and it absolutely streamlines the work process. People can log in and work within their time frame instead of having to wait for an email trail back and forth between participants. No email trail is needed because the process is organic. It is all there for you to see without having to wade through your inbox. Perfect, of course, for online students.

I can't imagine why a faculty member wouldn't embrace this technology. Consider that in the "old way" the faculty member only has access to the final product of a project. S/he may require submission of outlines or other supporting materials, but s/he can't really see the process. With things like googledocs and wikis, s/he can see the process laid out from first word on the page to completed project and all the steps in between. It can be a failsafe to be sure all members of a group participate or it be used simply as part of an evaluation of the project, whether a group project or a singular project. To make the process transparent would be a big draw for me if I were an educator.

What might keep faculty from accepting it might be the usual fear of anything new or even the belief that because the work is created online it is somehow inferior to "real" research.

I actually had a revelation while working with googledocs/wikis and it was this: while it may seem I am giving up control in working in these environments, in reality I have more control than ever before because the process is transparent and trackable. My group members can see my process and I theirs. Suddenly the unknowable becomes knowable. Maybe that's what would scare faculty the most?

Wikispaces v pbwiki--No contest

Full disclosure here: I loooooove pbwiki. I've used it for a project in another course and also helped my son use it for a project of his and it so easy and so intuitive to use that I couldn't imagine liking another service more. I did approach wikispaces with an open mind, though. I spent about three minutes browsing the site and at that point had to be shaken awae because I had dozed off. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...boring! Very dull interface. The service would seem to appeal to the two far ends of the spectrum: those who want to do a quiki-wiki and don't care much what it looks like or those who are particularly skilled in html coding and want to basically write their own ticket. This leaves out the bulk of wiki users: the ones who need to make a wiki that is visually interesting, but need to spend time on content, not figuring out how to make it pretty. I think pbwiki appeals to me because I can rely on templates and backgrounds and navigation structure they provide, while still being able to play around with elements if I choose to with html code. The source button in pbwiki lets you easily switch back and forth from wysiwyg and code. The wikispaces wysiwyg interface doesn't have a source button (that I could find). The whole interface felt counterintuitive. My critical comment--blech!

Good point on wikispaces: you can tag the page right from the editing screen and they also provide a notes field on the editing screen as well which is appealing to me because I like nothing better than to talk my projects to death.

pbwiki is so easy to use. wikispaces seems a bit more complicated than it has to be, especially considering the endproduct. Maybe it's just because I am accustomed to pbwiki, maybe not. In any case, wikispaces did not have any compelling features to lure me away from pbwiki.

Libraries--Chasing Their Own (Long) Tails?

In theory, libraries could be a casualty of the long tail because much like brick and mortar retailers they are limited in both geography and by what they are logistically able to keep in circulation. Weeding, the key to maintaining a robust circulation, is in fact counter-intuitive to the long tail premise. Library cooperatives, digitization of materials, and online access to the library system can help to lengthen the library's tail by extending collections beyond its phyiscal walls.

There is a limit, however, to how long a tail a library, even a cooperative supported library, can support. More and more people are used to creating their own niche market. One look at the average ipod playlist illustrates this well. Can libraries fulfill a person's every whim the way the internet can? Probably not. And while they can't duplicate the sheer volume of an itunes or an amazon, they can emulate the model.

How?

• Don't weed collections into oblivion. Work to circ.
• Be a proactive viral marketer. Virus don't originate in a vacuum. Be the mother virus.
• Identify your niche markets, including your micro-niche markets. Expand on them.
• Pimp your online resources. This is your best and easiest way to lengthen your tail. If it feels as easy to use as amazon and the results are comparable, the public is more likely to use it.
• Be aware of what is going on beyond Publisher's Weekly. Be out and about in the cybersphere. Borrow someone's tween or teen and ask them what they think.
• Accept your limitations--you are not ever going to be amazon. Never. Get over it.

All in all, I came away from the Anderson reading feeling that libraries were lucky that they were non-profits and not subject to the immediate economic effects of the long tail (i.e. Tower Records), but that they are not exempt from reacting to it.

My links laid bare

Using del.icio.us as a "virtual introduction" is a good idea, particularly if people have some experience with it and the "intro" premise is set up well (which I have no doubt would be the case). Bookmarks can tell you an awful lot about a person.

Upsides:

• People can be as revealing or private as they wish since they make the decision about what to link to.
• Encourages people to get to "know" classmates a little better. Since we don't have the benefit of in-person conversation, every little bit of extra information helps us cement an "idea" of who a person is. We get to have a personality!

Downside:

• Falling into the link wormhole. First, you're casually checking out classmates links, next thing you know it's 2am and you haven't gotten one assignment done. The internet is an evil place for the easily distracted.

If you show me yours, I'll show you mine...

I never enter another person's living space without checking out their bookshelves. Leave the medicine cabinets to the amateurs, nothing tells you more about a person than the books they have on their shelves. Shelfari (LibraryThing's prettier cousin) lets you examine the virtual shelves of its members. The books are displayed cover-front on a shelf, and there are multiple ways you can browse. If you just feel like taking a peek at what other people are reading you can just browse the covers. If something interests you, you can click on and get a brief desctiption, ratings, links to other people who have this book on their shelves, groups using the book and a link directing you to amazon for purchase. It's all right there on one easy to navigate page. All of your browsing needs are fulfilled in just a few clicks. If you're a joiner, there are plenty of groups to join, with something to appeal to just about everyone (the Harry Potter group scares me a little, personally).

You can simply be a voyeur, checking out everyone else's shelves or start to build your own shelves, which includes categories such as read, reading, planning to read, and wish list. The site can easily be used to track your own reading habits (but remember, others can see you too!) and beats the old pen and paper method any day. Over time, it may be able to tell you more about yourself than a shrink, a psychic and your mother combined--and it's cheaper, won't judge you, and is more fun to use!

garden party or dive bar--you choose

Magnolia vs. del.icio.us

I'm a half hearted social bookmarker who currently uses del.icio.us. In theory, I like to have all my links on one page so I can get them whereever I want them, but in reality, I'm accustomed to my favorites folders and feel that I have them pretty well organized there. It is the "social" part of social bookmarking that ultimately makes it compelling, and it is in the social aspect that I think Magnolia has the edge (although I still prefer del.icio.us)

First, it's prettier and makes you more likely to linger. del.icio.us is downright ugly. It serves the purpose, I suppose, but the magnolia site is almost soothing. Second, the starred ratings system in ma.gnolia is more user interactive and user friendly. I don't really like the "number of people" tag on del.icio.us entries. It is not meaningful info for me. After all, 1000 people may tag something but that doesn't mean it has quality. On the plus side for del.icio.us I had no trouble downloading their bookmark icon on my toolbar, but was unable to do this easily in ma.gnolia. As with most of these programs it all comes down to personal preference. Their basic features and mission are about the same, ma.gnolia brings the pretty and del.icio.us brings the functionality. Ma.gnolia is like a garden party and del.icio.us is like a dive bar, just depends on which atmosphere you'd rather hang out in.

Learning to fly (but I ain't got wings)

One of the things that I took away from the Brown readings this week was that information is pretty simple, and while the processes to harness it can be complicated, it can be done. Knowledge on the other hand is complex. You could even argue that it cannot exist outside of the human mind, except in artifact form: that is, the knowledge expressed is not an exact duplicate of the knowledge possessed. And the ways in which one acquires information vs. knowledge are very different as well. Information is processed. Knowledge is learned. Information is a commodity. Knowledge is at a premium. As companies place more and more emphasis on knowledge, stuff that only their people can provide, it will become important to make sure that education realigns itself with the goal of cultivating knowledge and the skills to cultivate that same knowledge in others, instead of passing on information.

Traditionally, schools operate on a top-down, listen-to-me-lecture, test-you-on-the-material model. While they are incorporating more and varied activities, ultimately they are still teaching for the test. While this may pass on some interesting information, does it prepare students for the kind of work they will be expected to do in the real world? In order to prepare the knowledge workers of the future, emphasis needs to be placed on "learning to be" instead of "learning about." Furthermore, our educational model is not based on a collaborative model. Innovation in the workplace and in the real world, particularly now with Web 2.0 technology in place, relies on collaboration and knowledge sharing. The education system needs to prepare students for that kind of environment by encouraging assignments and activities in context. They need to learn to become practitioners as much as they need to learn facts. In fact, practicing skills in context may even make more facts stick. If students learn to create knowledge and collaborate and share that knowledge, knowledge management becomes easier. Perhaps part of the reason knowledge management is so problematical is because no one has learned to share.

U Like? CiteULike.org Social Software isn't just for fun.

CiteULike is a free service to help you to store, organize and share scholarly papers. With one click of a button (the hallmark of any ss program worth its salt), you can add any papers you find on the web to your citeUlike library. Citeulike also extracts the citation info so there's no pesky retyping or cutting and pasting. Works directly from your browser which means you can use it from any computer (ding!) and no software to install (ding!) The social element of the site is that you can see if anyone is reading the same papers as you and possibly use this info to trackback to other articles that might be of interest to you. It also lets you tag your sources for clear organzation.



I find this interesting because I've got folders full of pdfs on my computer that are taking up valuable space, and if they could be stored on another server and be better organized I'm all for it. I also like the idea of seeing what other people are reading, particularly being an online student with limited access to like-minded peers.



Downside: in information, as in life, sharing puts you at some risk. Your information on the web leaves an imprint that you may or may not want public. Big brother may someday be watching...

I like a hot mess...

I know, crazy that someone pursuing a life in information science likes a hot mess, but I can't help myself. Don't get me wrong, I have a healthy respect for classification and organization. I walk that line. I get it. But when it comes to my personal information pursuits, I like to do the pursuing. Serendipity is my religion. I think that aggregators take away some of the joy that is the randomness of internet browsing. Aggregators are valuable for information you know you will use, but let's face it, if it's easy to press a button and add a feed to our aggregetor we are probably going to do it, even if we might never look at that information again. We end up clogging our aggregators up with junk and contributing to information overload, not harnessing it.

For me, there are sites that I know I will visit because they have passed the test of time with me--I have made it a point to seek them out again and again. These may be the type of sites I would aggregate, but then again I don't like one stop shopping. I hate the mall and aggregators make me feel like I'm at an information mall. Granted, it's a mall of all my favorite "stores", but still. I add my favorite blogs to my home page so I can see updates, and all others I catch as I am able...but I still have to make an effort. Think about it this way: I may waste time clicking around looking at all sorts of information, I may have to go to 17 different places to get what I need, but I also know that I want or need everything I am seeking. It is, therefore, quality information for me. My time is invested in this information. Aggregators may save me "clicking" time, but they might be wasting more of my time on inferior information, particularly with one-click aggregating. I may spend more time organizing my junk that I would actually exploring the good stuff.

My head's on vibrate for you...

The reason that Feed disturbs me so much is that should a feed actually happen we will all be complicit in its existence. We blithely surf the net, fill out online forms, make purchases that are leaving trackable breadcrumbs that lead directly back to us. Interactivity and collaboration are beautiful concepts...if they are voluntarily and freely participated in. The dark underbelly of the convenience and connectivity that we have is that we are not always active participants in the process. Somewhere in the back of our heads we know that information is being collected about our tastes and habits, but we enjoy Amazon telling us what we might like too much to question it. And it is exactly this kind of seemingly innocuous passivity that could lead us not to question the concept of a feed. Especially if Paris Hilton or some other rich and "famous" person gets one first. There was a time when only the crazy rich had things like $1000 handbags and $500 sunglasses. Now, our society makes it seem like things like that are not just fantasy items, but things that you should strive to get. Value isn't determined by the actual merits of an item, but by who else has one and how good the marketing on a product is. Can't you see a company developing a feed and using product placement and a compelling marketing message, aimed directly at us through information collected about us from the web to convince us to implant their feed? I think Britney Spears might be beta testing one right now, in fact.

Think about the digital divide that would take place in the wake of this kind of technology. It's one thing to buy a cheaply produced knock off TV or computer--if it malfunctions, you're out some money, but nothing tragic will happen to you. Now wire that same device into your brain...you are not just putting your finances at risk, but your health and potentially your life. The consequences are horrible to contemplate.

I'm sure you could argue that people would draw the line at "implanting" technology in their bodies, but cosmetic surgery is de rigeur nowadays, often in the face of very real health risks. What's to stop our search for status and perfection from heading that far north?

Google, of course--Would you trust anyone less to implant your feed?

I love to hate Google, but I really do prefer Google reader over Bloglines.

• Google reader is, well, more readable. Font wise, layout wise, all around. I find it easier to navigate.
• Google lists all of your new feeds front and forward, so you can check them out in a quick glance without having to go to the sidebar and click on unread items.
• I like the Trends feature in Google reader. It lets me track how much precious time I am wasting. Plus, everybody loves a chart.
• That you can integrate GR into your google homepage makes it less trouble to access.
• I like the fact that you don't have to assign a folder to your subscription upon downloading like you do with Bloglines. I like to take my time on deciding where to classify something. Don't pressure me Bloglines!

Best thing about Bloglines?

It's not a Google product. Reason enough to support it.

Bookmark, schmookmark

The collaborative nature of Web 2.0 applications really interests me. I am not part of the MySpace/Facebook generation. I appreciate the value of those sites, certainly see the marketing potential in them, but really would never use one on a personal level. Twitter, same kind of thing: honestly, no one needs an update on what I am doing that often. So my social software focus is on information, not necessarily about myself (although social bookmarking may end up telling you more about yourself than you want to now). I've only recently started using del.icio.us, but being able to "bookmark" my online interests and then follow a thread of that interest to other sites opens up a whole new information pathway for me. While admittedly I am currently only using del.icio.us for addictive, time-sucking activites right now, I can see it becoming an online resource as I continue in the library field, creating bundles of tags that I can use as shorthand to find relevant information on topics, as a repository for helpful sites, and a place where I can share this information with others. Best yet, you are not tied to one computer. Since del.icio.us is online, you can access it from anywhere you can access the internet (key, I think, in this wireless-driven society).

Too much information, running 'round my brain

My son (14) and I read Feed together.

Me (horrified tone in my voice): Could you imagine having that in your head all the time?
Him (excited): OMG, that would be so cool! You could IM your friends all the time. You wouldn't have to go to school, you could just have it uploaded. You could just wish for something, have the money takn out of your account and get it just by thinking about it.
Me: Commercials running in your head all the time would be cool?
Him (shrugs): Yeah, why not? They're all around you anyway.
Me: OK, but where does the feed end and YOU begin? Do you determine what comes in on the feed or does someone else? At least with commercials, you can turn them off. The feed's running all the time.
Him: Um , never thought of that.

*****************************************
I've said it before and I'll say it again: just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. The most horrifying aspect of the dystopia in Feed (and it is a dystopia despite what my son might think) is that people have become sheeplike in their acceptance of the feed. No one questions it, when they are temporarily jammed they are paralyzed by the loss, and when people question the idea of the feed, they are branded as crazy. I like to believe that the minute someone tries to sell us on implantation of a feed in our brains that we as a society would stand up and say no, but these kinds of changes do not happen overnight, they sneak up on you. One minute it's the convenience of email on your computer, then your pocket, why not right into your brain? Although there may be many, many stages between the RSS feed as we know it and an at-birth installation of one, the fact remains we as a society love technology, love to consume, love convenience, and love conformity. This sets up a breeding ground for the possibility. Honestly, I love my ipod and itunes as much as they next person, but I would draw the line at having Apple implant itunes 27.0 in my head. My son, however, would do it right now if I called him up here and said it was available. Why? Because technology doesn't surprise him any more. He may not be able to put a name to it, but he knows that another "build" is on the way somewhere, and all he has to do is click install.

Blog This!

As far as blogging programs go, they all kind of work on the same principle and mainly differ in the bells and whistles that they offer. I will say that doing an informal survey of the blogs I visit daily, most are Word Press, some are Blogger, and some are Type Pad. I had a LiveJournal account way back when, but I always saw that as more of a semi-closed community more than a public blog forum. None of the blogs I read use it.

WordPress seemed the most user-friendly to me for a number of reasons:

• I am a fan of the Blog Roll and WordPress has a blog roll that is easy to set up and maintain.
• More template options than Blogger.
• Customizable CSS
• Adding widgets is easy, they have a number of options that you can just drag and drop into your blog's layout. You can do the same thing in blogger, but you have to seek the widgets out. While I am wary of too many widgets, presenting a selection of them can help you make a judicious decision.
• Video slideshow function seems easy to use although you will need to pay if you want to use more than a certain amount of bandwidth.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask about features though, because my favorite blogs are simple, widget free with basic short entries like this one.

They Get the Spaces In Between

The first thing that came to mind as I read the Seely Brown chapter was: if the home office revolution is so compelling and inevitable, why doesn't Google subscribe to it? After all, they certainly have the technology to support it. Instead, Google has a corporate culture that is built around an office. So even though technology can facilitate and revolutionize the way we communicate, especially across long distances, it cannot account for what I like to call "the spaces in between", that part of human interaction that takes place only in physical proximity. With the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools you could argue that physical proximity is not necessary, that technology can bridge that gap. But if there is one thing that I learned from lo, these many months of HIB theory, it is that you need to take context into consideration when dealing with human interaction. While Web 2.0 technologies have made communication easier on many levels, they do not replace face to face communication. An emoticon can represent a smiley face, but no one is going to say that it replaces actual smiling in our day to day life. So as long as people still need and thrive on actual human interaction, there is hope for a brick and mortar library. But the library's continued existence should not be taken for granted.

The computer is a tool, not the answer to every problem, and it is how libraries use that tool that will determine their future viability. As Seely Brown indicated, we sometimes expect society to adapt to changing technology, a slow and painful process, when a subtle change in point of view could have us asking how can emerging technologies facilitate our growth as a society, how do we adapt technology to our societal needs and goals, not the other way around. This can be applied in the society of libraries as well: the question isn't how are we going to adapt to all of these new technologies--wikis, websites with bells and whistles, IM, RefChat, rss feeds, MySpace, Facebook--but how can we use them to further the growth of our institutions and the growth of our communities, hopefully a growth of which the library is a vital part. So are we, libraries, to be the users or the used up? We cannot ignore technological advances, but neither can we let them dictate our mission.

Theoretically, we can make the jump from home office to home library: everyone has the power of the library right at ther fingertips, no need to have a building, pay expensive professionals, and keep up a dusty old collection, if in a few keystrokes you can call up any kind of reference you want. Well, the same arguments that Seely Brown made against the viability of the virtual office replacing the actual office can be made in defense of the brick and mortar library: technology can be frustrating--the perfect machine has yet to be invented--so people like and need support from expert users,otherwise they have to become experts themselves. Let's face it, sometimes you just want a tech to push you out of your chair and take over when the going gets rough. Often, this kind of help can only take place face to face.

So on one hand it seems that replacing brick and mortar libraries with click and mortar libraries is inevitable in the face of emerging technology, and on the other hand (like the virtual office) not so much. The question is how can libraries leverage new technologies with the "spaces in between" that they fill and become a part of the fabric of those technologies?

So Fresh and So Clean

I'm a simple girl. I like my coffee with milk, my books to have actual paper pages and a cover, and I like my blogs neat, informative, and interesting. Too many bells and whistles and you will lose me. That is one of the things that I liked about the Clemson library weblog. http://www.lib.clemson.edu/weblog/

You could log on to get up to date information on current library events, "housekeeping" type issues, and new additions to the collection without wading through a lot of widgets and whistles. It is simple and clean. You can link to the catalog, article search, and e-journal request right from the page. There is no blog roll, which I miss, because I have found many interesting things linking to blogs from other blogs, but I actually think it is in keeping with what I see as the philosophy of the blog: info, quick and dirty. What I think keeps this blog from being boring, however, is the Daily Photo, Flickr link aspect. It makes the blog visually interesting and adds an element that could bring people back to the site to see what the Daily Photo is. It tells a story abut the library even if the pictures are unrelated and have little to do with the hard content of the blog. It has the potential to be fun as well, and link in with other Clemson Flickr accounts/events. I see a lot of ways that a Flickr companion to a blog could be used to promote libraries and even drive people to the blog.


I also want to give a shout out to http://digitalcampus.tv/ It is a companion blog to a podcast dealing with digital media and technology and its effects on colleges, libraries, etc. This one also does it right. You can listen to the podcast, subscribe to it, visit the links discussed in it, and read a small recap. Informative and incorporates blogging and podcasting, two points of entry to the ideas.